This invention relates to power-driven lawn care equipment and more particularly to equipment of the lawnmower type.
In our copending application, Ser. No. 477,595, filed June 10, 1974, we have disclosed a combination power-driven lawn mower and lawn care chemical dispensing machine. This machine was devised to simplify lawn care by combining the conventional lawn cutting operation with that of applying lawn care chemicals; two tasks that theretofore had to be performed separately. That invention in one of its aspects involved the affixing of a chemical dispensing hopper to the main frame of the mower and powering the chemical distributing vanes from the mower either by pulley or by engagement with one of the mower wheels.
While chemical dispensing was thereby enabled to be performed simultaneously with lawn cutting, there are other lawn tasks such as thatching which up to now have had to be performed separately.
When thatching is performed by a unifunctional prior art thatching machine, the tines operate at a rotational speed which is considerably lower than that of the whirling blade of a rotary mower. The tine peripheral speed is also lower than that of the wheels of the thatcher which are pushed or driven across the lawn. The result of the thatching operation is to separate the dead grass or thatch from the live, growing grass thereby to permit sunlight and air to reach closer to the base of the grass plant. Because the tines of an aerator operate at a slow peripheral speed, the thatch is loosened and lifted in the conventional machine but is not thrown with the force that cut grass clippings are discharged by a rotary mower blade. Accordingly, the user of a conventional thatching machine is forced, after the thatching operation, to go over the lawn again in order to sweep or rake up the loosened debris. It would be extremely desirable, therefore, to provide a machine that could reduce or even eliminate the need for a separate raking operation.
The conventional power-driven rotary lawn mower consists of a four-wheel carriage supporting a gasoline engine above a main platform and a rotary blade mounted on the engine shaft below the platform. The engine shaft is vertical and the grass-cutting blade rotates in a horizontal plane. At one point adjacent the periphery of the blade's rotation, the main platform is formed into an ejection chute or tunnel for discharging the cut grass clippings. In more recent models of the rotary lawn mower, the ejection chute is articulated rearwardly of the motor shaft and is designed to dispense the grass clippings into a grass catcher or bag that may be suspended between the control handles. This has the advantage of permitting the mower to be maneuvered amongst shrubs and trees without requiring any more maneuvering room than the axle width of the mower housing.
Another of the convenience options available to purchasers of rotary lawn mowers is the mower that is equipped with power drive wheels. In this type of mower, a power take-off in the form of a belt or chain drive is coupled to the main motor shaft and, via a right-angle drive, is also coupled to the front wheel axle so that the engine power in addition to driving the cutting blade also drives the front wheels thereby reducing the pushing effort of the operator to that of a steering or guidance effort.
Because only a fraction of the total available horsepower of the mower is needed to be employed in propelling the front wheels and because the right-angle drive heretofore used has proven practical in transmitting engine power to the front axle shaft, it has occurred to us that the use of a somewhat heavier duty engine and right-angle drive may greatly extend the flexibility of the conventional self-propelled rotary lawn mower so that a more universally useful machine can be obtained.